The Case against Hume [Excerpted by Linz from 'Distinctly Unscientific Beliefs' Thread]

Submitted by James S. Valliant on Wed, 2007-11-28 07:58

With all due respect to Hume, values are not a species of mythological beast, arbitrary, whimsical or some kind of religious invention. They are a fact about life itself.

"Good" is a teleological concept. It implies an answer to the questions: "Good to whom and for what?"

Teleology is a phenomenon of biology: since only a living being acts in order to survive, only to such a being can something be "good for" it or "bad for" it. As all of our observations show, life is value-pursuit and only living things pursue values. A plant will act to reach the sunlight, but, if it cannot, it will die. For it, sunlight is good -- failing to reach it is bad. Life is the ultimate end of all of its value-pursuing, the only standard by which we can evaluate what is "good" or "bad" for the plant.
The same is true for people -- but only humans can and must choose the values they will pursue. We can act perversely -- in opposition to our health and life. We must select our values carefully. That's why only human beings have or need ethics.

It might be helpful to add something that was only before implicit. Rand believed that most ethical thinking started "in the middle." She believed that the question "What are the values that we should pursue?" could not be answered without first answering the questions, "What are values -- and why do we need values at all?"

Early on, I had written:

"If a value is the object of my action -- something I act to obtain or keep -- then they are very real, indeed. Every living organism I have ever observed pursues certain ends. Survival requires this. Even you [Richard Goode] have goals, I suspect.

"For human beings, who can and must choose the values they pursue, the only question is: are the values I am pursuing actually going to achieve my survival, health and prosperity. Humans, unfortunately, can act, and have acted, self-destructively.

"At the physical level, something is either nutritious for me to eat or it is not. It may even be poison. My nature dictates the range of healthy values open to me. IF I want to live, I must eat within this range of items. Period.

"Thus it is for all values.

"The 'good' is an aspect of reality in relation to human survival and well-being.

"My well-being cannot be achieved arbitrarily. As a human being, I must discover those principles, not just of proper nutrition, but of proper living in general.

"A wildfire in my neighborhood is bad thing by this standard. Running from one, if it got too close, would be a good thing by this standard. Such an evaluation is a purely factual one. IF I want to live, condition X is bad, action Y is good.

"The fact that I am alive and that my life has certain (very empirical) conditions attached to its continuation and prosperity is what makes this relationship a perfectly objective one.

"For example, I have already alluded to the virtue of rationality. As a human being, this is my most basic tool of survival. As such, let me suggest, its exercise is my most basic virtue.

"This relationship to reality exists for all objective virtues. There is only price that can buy the values of credibility and trust -- in reality -- and that is honesty. So, too, a life of initiating violence is dangerous and self-defeating and unproductive. Etc.

"That Hitler was evil is not subjective at all. It is as OBJECTIVE as math."

You questioned whether even cabbages pursued values. I answered:

"Not consciously, of course, Richard, but all living organisms pursue their values. Plants pursue sunlight through phototropism, absorb the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, etc. They do act in order to survive. Even a modest single-cell organism is a complex machine of value-pursuit, with an entire architecture for survival, thriving, and reproduction. In mobile animals, this pursuit has the added help of consciousness (indeed, that's the function of consciousness). In humans, this value-pursuit becomes self-conscious, a deliberate purpose. That is why only humans, who consciously select the values they pursue, have or need a science of ethics.

"Life can be defined as just that: the process of self-generated, self-sustaining activity."

I also wrote:

"Value-pursuit is simply a fact about living organisms. It makes life possible. The relationship of my subjective values to my actual survival is an objective one. Since this is ~ why ~ living organisms pursue values in the first place, this is what makes them objective or not. If one were to pursue the subjective values of, say, Nazism, this relationship between fact and value would be otherwise."

It is a matter of fact that Nazism (or poison) is bad for my survival and, indeed, for all human life. It is a matter of fact (see below) that freedom is good for my survival and, indeed, for all human life.

My objective values are the necessary (and very real and empirically determined) requirements and conditions of my life.

Thus, under any given set of circumstances, and assuming it has a choice of actions, what a living being is determines what it ought to do.

William, thank you for providing links. I’d like to comment on Enright's article. First, I'm mostly in agreement with her position. However few propositions require clarification. For example she said:
She (Rand) acknowledges that animals and
infants use their emotions to figure out things about the world" I agree that here is some contradiction, unless one specifies that emotions are not tools of rational cognition. Animals and newborns cannot be rational. Their main tool of cognition is perception.Plesure-pain mechanism are not emotions, they are sensations ,inputs, as I've shown in my previous post about emotions.Emotions,however, are outputs of subconsciousness,end-result of previously stored knowledge. Emotions as automatic subconscious response cannot tell you anything about entity in question, they only tell you what you already know or think that you know about this entity. Emotions can help to the cognitive process since they are your feedback. If one's emotions are inadequate-for example one feels sad about Saddam Hussein's demise-one may go and initiate cognitive inquiry-that is to check the source of one's feelings. But one cannot learn anything about Saddam Hussein from one's emotions toward him. Even most basic emotions like fear cannot be expressed without the process of learning the source of fear, and this knowledge is not innate. One has to learn first what one has to fear. When one reacts to other person's emotions one treats them as percepts.Smith understands that John is angry-but this is John's emotion, not Smith’s. Even if Smith feels happy that John is angry that doesn't tell to Smith anything about John. And finally,I don't understand what is the origin of misconception that objectivists are unfeeling people who repress their emotions. If you read "Atlas shrugged" you find that Ayn Rand described all characters (both good and evil) in her novel primary via emotions. "Feelings" is the most common word in this book. However she never failed to explain the source of their feelings.

James: “…its quite apparent that you haven't a clue as to either Rand's theory of emotions or the facts of her life…logically, it amounts only to ad hominem...”

I was discussing the “deuces wild” claim in regard to passion as a basis for ethics, using Rand’s decision to have an affair with Branden as an example.

Using the affair as an example in this way does not “logically” constitute an ad hominem. Even if one were to conclude that Rand acted wrongly in this particular case, that would still not constitute an ad hominem, which is a claim about someone’s ideas or beliefs based on their character or situation.

I’m making no such claim. I’m simply using this case to argue that reason can also be whimsical and lead one astray, just as passion can. Rand is a good example because of her emphasis on reason and therefore one presumes she consciously tried to infuse reason into every aspect of her life, great and small.

If you had honestly wanted to discuss Rand's personal life as an ethical example, then you would have attempted to discuss the evidence from the outset. You did not -- and it is plain that you do not even know what that evidence is. For example, its quite apparent that you haven't a clue as to either Rand's theory of emotions or the facts of her life.

No, you had other motives, as anyone with an IQ over 10 who reads this can see -- but, logically, it amounts only to ad hominem.

If you are sincere, then please choose an example from your own life with the same color.

James: “Brendan, can you show that this has something to do with the topic at hand?”

The context was the discussion over reason vs passion as a basis for ethics, and the claim that Hume’s claim for sentiment or passion amounts to basing morality on whim, in which case it’s “deuces wild” – anything goes.

One of the arguments against passion as a basis for decision-making seems to be that passion is inarguable: one can feel anything or nothing, just as one pleases, without needing justification. Feelings are not subject to debate in the way that reasoned arguments are, and are for that reason unreliable.

(Proponents of passion would of course reject the "deuces wild" charge, arguing that one can challenge feelings, that feelings can be analysed, found worthy or deficient etc.)

Since examples are often a good way of illustrating a point, I used the example of the Rand/Branden affair, positing a somewhat earthy explanation for a real-life moral decision.

Judging by the response to my explanation, Randians are opposed to the argument from passion, although nobody thought to argue for reason in this particular case.

So we’re still no clearer whether Rand’s decision to have the affair was a matter of reason or passion. It certainly has the appearance of reason, and one could view the line of reasoning as compelling: two moral and intellectual giants had experienced a melding of minds. In the interests of consistency with the mind/body integration, it followed that this melding of minds should be reflected in the melding of bodies.

Of course, many people would dismiss this argument as nonsense, or react with passionate disapproval. But Frank and Barbara were hardly in that position. For them, Rand’s reasoning was well-nigh inarguable, since they had already brought into her premises, and quite clearly could not find any compelling counter-argument, or at least not one that convinced Rand.

So the “deuces wild” claim could apply equally to reason as to passion, especially if one were to regard Rand’s reasoning as a rationalisation of her passion.

Yes, a human being with all the same emotional equipment as the rest of us -- check.

Brendan, can you show that this has something to do with the topic at hand?

There is (right now) a related thread which would be a far more appropriate place for such comments, wrong-headed and ignorant though they may be. Spare us the stupid, and usually wrong, "equal fault all around cliche," and learn something about what you are talking about before distracting a discussion of ethics with this.

Olivia: “I hold that Ayn was a fallible human being, not some super-human genius who could read minds.”

That makes two of us, Olivia. I also believe she was subject to the same hopes, doubts and fears as the rest of the human race.

“It is you and your ilk's party line that results in the implication that Ayn was super-human...”

No. I’m saying that comments such as: “a paragon of achievement, an amazing, nearly unprecedented example of the highest hopes promised by her philosophy” result in the implication that Ayn Rand was super-human. Especially since the “highest hopes” include moral perfection.

Of course she couldn’t be expected to have read Branden’s mind. But I think this whole episode points to a fair degree of self-delusion by both people that they were morally and intellectually unique beings who were ushering in a new age.

The way I see it, both parties were at fault over the affair and its aftermath, as is usually the case. But the continuing fall-out indicates quite a different conflict.

In your examples, it is only an injustice which occasions the "squashing" of anyone, Reed.

It is only the injustice of a murderer or the one who initiates force which can, in the first instance, squash someone. In reaction to that injustice, it is only against the unjust that any force was needed to be used. See, only against those who are themselves "individual squashers."

"Justice" does not only mean getting bad guys.

First and foremost, it is recognizing and rewarding virtue.

Only an injustice -- indeed, an injustice which violates rights -- ever calls for justice to use force -- and such force may only "justly" be used in response and reaction to its initiation.

Only when one puts himself on the wrong side of justice does he ever need to fear being squashed by it.

Had he remained "just" -- no squashing needed.

A just individual will never justly be squashed.

If you mean: does the execution of legal "justice" ever require the "squashing" of the unjust individual -- one who has acted immorally, unjustly, irrationally and in violation of another's rights (i.e., self-destructively)?

You bet.

But "justice" alone will never do any "individual squashing."

Let's not equivocate, okay? If, by "justice" you mean "rectifying a legal injustice," then, sure, the unjust individual might well get squashed. If you mean by "justice" the virtue of judging men rationally and honestly, then, no: it is a means by which the individual flourishes.

Now, of course, you always can stop thinking when it feels convenient, but "justice" won't take the rap for the consequences of your criminal's injustice.

1. An individual receiving capital punishment for murder.
2. An individual being imprisoned for the remainder of their life for murder.
3. An individual being killed by someone justly defending themselves.

Olivia,you are 100% right,but consider as follows: Branden wrote the book about AYN RAND. Every body who read "Atlas shrugged" would instantly know that Branden's presentation of Rand's character is a lie.However,thanks to Branden, and especially thanks to the movie,based on her book many people have been first exposed to Objectivism. The difference between PAR and PARC is that PAR's topic is Ayn Rand and PARC's-Brandens. And Brandens-who need them?

But my comments were directed at the absurd over-rating of Rand’s intellectual and moral abilities. Smart and talented as she was, she failed to notice Branden’s perfidy. That places her on the level of ordinary mortals.

She did not fail to notice incongruence between Branden’s professions and actions – they caused her some anxiety, if you read PARC, you’d know this.

I hold that Ayn was a fallible human being, not some super-human genius who could read minds. This is why I condemn Branden for his dishonesty – to understand the whole truth of their relationship she only had his words to go on, and he lied like a Cretan.

It is you and your ilk's party line that results in the implication that Ayn was super-human, because you’re the ones who say she should’ve seen through his perfidy. Why should she have? How could she have? She put great stock in having evidence before calling someone a liar and in the case of Branden, because he bullshitted so much, she didn’t have any. If anything, it shows her integrity to her principles that she did believe in him for so long... and an integrity that the Branden's both exploited btw.

Crass and flippant. I plead guilty. But leaving that aside, is there some truth to my comments? I think so. Men get hard-ons, women get moisties, and they become blind to the consequences of their actions. Standard operating procedure.

“…not to mention the absurd one-sided blame you dump on her for the affair…”

No way. Branden was an ambitious young man, keen to make his mark. An affair with a mentor is a standard behaviour for people on their way up. But my comments were directed at the absurd over-rating of Rand’s intellectual and moral abilities. Smart and talented as she was, she failed to notice Branden’s perfidy. That places her on the level of ordinary mortals.

"I bet I would've rejected the idea of God (and this was, I think, harder to do then than today), but still been attracted to various ideas of Grotius', a fascinating guy and a true pioneer of natural law thinking, Christian apologist though he was."

I think this sentence of yours put in a nutshell what makes Rand so great. We don't have to swallow a half a cup of poison (God) in order to get half a cup of soup (natural law). With her, you can drink the whole cup without trepidation.

But you see, there's a reason to allow stoats on board. First, they get to reveal themselves as stoats. Second, in this instance, they get to be illustrative of the whole point of the civility debate. The unconditional-civility crowd would damn you for being "uncivil" to the stoat Brendan, and consider your "incivility" to be a far worse sin than the skunk-squirts that provoked it, if I may mix my rodents. Whereas my argument is, the evidence is right there, so call Brendan what he is.

It's hard to transport oneself back into another context, of course, even in a thought-experiment, but I hope that I would have dismissed Hobbesian subjectivism, innate ideas, any idea that ethics are a mere opiate of masses, and seen that Hume's effort at finding such "universal facts" in the corridors of emotion were all misbegotten. If I were anything like I am today, I bet I would've rejected the idea of God (and this was, I think, harder to do then than today), but still been attracted to various ideas of Grotius', a fascinating guy and a true pioneer of natural law thinking, Christian apologist though he was.

I hope that I would have rejected them all -- admitted that we don't yet have the answer -- and have tried to look for a better one.

You make an excellent point when you bring up the "compared to what" situation. Hume, alas, did not face Ayn Rand. Norton lists the following options.

Morals are
(1) subjective ala Hobbes or Pufendorf
(2) based on the free will of God ala Grotius (who actually has 3 other suggestions)
(3) based on innate ideas supplied by God ala Clarke, Balguy and others
(4) the opiate of the masses ala Mandeville
(5) based on universal facts about human nature ala Hume.

You and I prefer Rand to any of the above, but if this was the year 1770, which among the above would you pick?

When Richard posted his "argument" last night, I was about to jump on and give him a tongue lashing all his own... but then I thought about how the James Valliant I know would respond to an invitation to discuss the "logic" of such vulgarity directed at Ayn. As if you'd let it pass! Thanks for not letting me - or her - down. I can't tell you how much this meant to me.

Absent a meaningful response to what has already been presented, I will not move on to other topics at your request. Oh, yes, it's of fundamental importance. And, yes, the truth is out there. Only, you don't seem to be interested in the slightest way in the truth.

According to off-line messages, this one-way discussion of ours has been useful to others.

That alone has kept me going.

You have provided zero value here and I have no interest in engaging you further.

I also note the bad faith in your "excellent example" -- which, in good faith, would have be addressed in simple fairness to history. Imagine me using as an "excellent example" an inference which implied that your mother was, say, a cheap whore and a child molester. (Although, of course, it need not be your mother, I trust, to offend you -- right?) Then, I insist we not discuss the truth of the matter, merely that we use it as an example of logical form, saying, "I don't really care whether your mother was a cheap whore and a child molester. Let's get back to substance."

This last implication is the richest -- you have provided nada by way of substance. Any call to "get back on track" from you is no more than amusing.

Why, to be frank, should anyone care what your opinions are?

You've given us no reason to care.

Your use of Brendan's last ditch effort at ad hominem is telling.

So, while it is clear that you are in need of some serious remedial education on the subjects about which you express such strong and misguided opinions, no more of it will come from me unless you can show a bit more than juvenile bull session attitude.

On the "deuces wild" issue, I found this quotation from David Fate Norton and thought I would pass it on to you.

"Hume's examination of the controversy regarding the foundation of morality is found principally in two works, the TREATISE ON HUMAN NATURE, and AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS. These works show Hume to have thought that what he and others of his period called moral scepticism--the view that alleged moral distinctions have no other foundation than idiosyncratic and subjective preferences--is mistake." p. 155

Strange as it may seem to you, I'm not interested in Ayn Rand's personal life. I don't have an "interpretation" of what went on between Rand and the Brandens, and nor do I want one.

It seems to me that Brendan's argument (whatever its merits) is an excellent example of an inference to the best explanation which is one particular kind of inductive inference. Thus, it seems worthwhile to present his argument formally, to lay bare (so to speak) its formal structure. And I'd like James to tell us more about his derivation of ought from is.

There are other threads for discussing Rand and the Brandens. Let's get this one back on track.

You're forgetting (in the most sexist way I might add) that Branden was not just a passive phallic symbol which Rand was seduced by, but a brilliant man exerting all of his energies and cleverness to convince Rand that he was the man she never had, the equal, the lover, the total package necessary to attach himself gainfully to her goldmine.

You're forgetting that Ayn Rand was an artist -- and one who poured her heart and soul and mind into exalting existence, man's efficacy in the universe, man's potential for happiness and capacity for honesty and mutual benefit in his dealings with others and independence in meaning and happiness and purpose. Given all of these values, and they were given and explicit as in few human beings, she trusted that a man who professed such a shared soul could NEVER do what he did.

You think she should have seen right through it, when her need to see what she saw in Nathaniel Branden was not the whole or important picture -- you're forgetting that Branden was the one providing what she needed to see. He was an actor in this play, as well. He claims, himself, to have always been the aggressor. A young man, who considered himself an "operator" in his own words when at the peek of exploiting Rand -- teaching her ideas at an institute in his name while carrying on an affair with an attractive actress and continuing to lead her on, with the help of his current wife who was in it for the same reasons, according to Nathaniel Branden himself.

What is not remarkable is that Rand was seduced and blindsided by people who would be so knowingly treacherous, so aware of the values they were betraying, that she was simply incapable of believing it possible. It was this very benevolence -- that she did not believe people who had been explicitly exposed to the rationality of morality as the Brandens had, and agreed to it explicitly, and TAUGHT IT in her name, could proceed to do what they had done -- which made doing what they did to Rand possible.

The Brandens exploited this quality in Rand. What is remarkable, and awful, is not that Rand was seduced by the thing she promised mankind and was promised in return by the Brandens, what is remarkable is the seduction of Rand by the Brandens, the two people who perpetrated it and have attempted to 1) out the whole thing after Rand's death and 2) exploit her once again through the slanting of their account so that Brendan's and Goode's interpretation is possible, so that they can resort to discounting Rand's entire philosophy based on the Brandens' biographical works.

Thanks for giving yet another example of what the Brandens have done for the cause of Rand's ideas. I hope the people at TAS take a good look.

(P1) The facts are as follows: (a) Branden was evil incarnate, (b) Rand was a paragon of achievement, an amazing, nearly unprecedented example of the highest hopes promised by her philosophy, and (c) Rand failed to detect the blatant evil that was not just before her, but also inside her, and not just for a night or two, but for years.

(P2) The moistie hypothesis explains the facts.

(P3) No alternative hypothesis explains the facts as well as the moistie hypothesis.

Therefore, (C) Rand was led astray by the stirring of her loins, prompted by a silly, adolescent fantasy about the redemptive power of a white knight's mighty sword.

This is an excellent example of an inference to the best explanation. And, what's more, it's an inductive inference.

James, do you consider that your ought from is derivation is an instance of inference to the best explanation? Or is it an instance of some other inductive inference schema? If so, what kind of inductive inference is it?

You absolutely disgust me. Your crass, flippant, disrespectful summation of Rand's attraction to Branden - not to mention the absurd one-sided blame you dump on her for the affair - has filled me with such hatred, I swear I'll kick you in the peas (that you probably imagine are balls) if I ever have the misfortune of meeting you in the flesh!

You are a stoat of a human being. Just catching a glimpse of your avatar honestly makes me feel sick. You are the sort of person that Ayn highlights as a parasite, the sort who values nothing, the sort who feels a pang of self esteem only when trashing his betters, the sort who doesn't understand the meaning of the word sacred - and never will, the sort who feels dirty inside and is compelled to besmirch those who make an authentic attempt to live nobly, proudly, honourably.

I hope Linz boots your sorry arse off this site, for if your post beneath is not a glaring example of brazen bad faith, I don't know what is.

The fact that Rand got a moistie for a much younger man is not earth-shattering news – happens all the time. And condemning the elephant in the room is to shoot the messenger.

Here’s a puzzle: if Branden were evil incarnate, why did Rand not suss it from the get-go? After all, she was a moral and intellectual genius, “a paragon of achievement, an amazing, nearly unprecedented example of the highest hopes promised by her philosophy”.

Surely this paragon of achievement could have detected the blatant evil that was not just before her, but also inside her, and not just for a night or two, but for years.

For want of a satisfactory explanation for this failure, I’m plumping for the moistie. Rand would not be the first woman to be led astray by the stirring of her loins, prompted by a silly, adolescent fantasy about the redemptive power of a white knight’s mighty sword.

And I also wonder if Richard might explain the "OUGHT only to be" part. Now, first we have a (dubious) factual assertion: "reason IS always the slave of passions" -- then, for reasons not made at all clear, we get this strange addition... "ought to be." Hmm.

Is Hume being Humean here?

In order to render all of this consistent, we must conclude that Hume believed emotion itself to be the rock bottom foundation of all value questions. As Rand held life to be the metaphysical root of "value," so Hume held "sentiment," passion and emotion to be the source of our values.

Given the realities about human psychology and behavior, this is the essence of "deuces wild."

"You're not familiar with:
"Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.""

Is this a trick question? I've only been in philosophy since 1964 so I still have a lot to learn. Tee hee. Or maybe it's your way of showing Hume deriving an "ought" from an "is." Reason is the slave of the passions, therefore, reason OUGHT to be etc.
Well, I've got to get back to Hume and try to locate this esoteric reference. I think I'll start with II, III, III of the TREATISE.

"I think it could be argued that it is a kind of "subjectivism" to "start" your ethics "irreducibly with human passion,"

Of course, but I think the phrase "a kind of subjectivism" hides a lot of sins. I once came across an Ethics text that regarded any ethics that referred to humans as subjective. If you wanted to be Objective, you had to start with God, or animals. Ugh. That's a high price to pay for objectivity.

"Her derivation incorporating the "choice to live" points to an assertoric imperative ("since you choose X, you ought to do Y") as foundational to moral obligation, not categorical (Kant) or hypothetical (Hume) ones."

I think you may have a false trichotomy here. Imperatives aren't divided into assertoric, categorical and hypothetical. Rather, the hypothetical imperative is divided into two species, the assertoric (which deals with actual purposes) and the problematic (which deals with possible purposes). See Kant's GROUNDING, p. 415 in the German.

Also, why do you associate the hypothetical with Hume. Surely Rand believes that all imperatives are hypothetical. "Reality confronts man with a great many 'musts', but all of them are condition (i.e., hypothetical--see "Causality Versus Duty," pp. 118-9 hc.

"So insofar as Hume is doing any kind of derivation, it starts irreducibly with human passion:
(1) I want X.
(2) To do X, reason tells me I need to do Y.
(3) Therefore, I ought to do Y."

I address the "whim" or "deuces wild" objection earier in this thread, so let me reprint it here.

"I think Hume would have thought his theory forestalled the "deuces wild" notion of morality. This because of four reasons. (1) he thought that the sentiments that found morality are the same for ALL humans; (2) these sentiments produce in us that SAME moral evalutions; (3) they apply to ALL humans and finally (4) they produce in us assessments of ALL human beings."

Again, Hume may be wrong here, but I maintain his error is not "subjectivism."

"It is precisely my empirical belief that folks do not ALL share the same moral "sentiments" which causes my dissatisfaction with Hume."

I think in the end, strange to say, Hume agrees with you. Remember this line from the conclusion of ENQUIRY CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS: "When I reflect on this [disputes regarding the foundations of morality] I fall back into diffidence and skepticism, and suspecting an hypothesis, so obvious, had it been a true one, would, long ere now, have been received by the universal suffrage and consent of mankind." (EPM, 9.1)

Linz states agreement with Rick Pasotto that animal cruelty is not something for the law to deal with but for custom, shaming, etc. I think this takes a needlessly rationalistic approach to rights. It's a matter of philosophy of law and some good old empirical observations how property rights are best drawn up. I don't see some basis in foundational rights theory for insisting that animals can be considered property just like anything else is. Maybe the deduction/derivation is there, but I haven't seen it. In actual practice and application, people have the right to take certain actions with respect to physical things, and these rights are spelled out with certain conditions and specifications in the law.

So here's what I propose: laws that prohibit cruelty to animals are laws that are expressions of rights that humans have with respect to those animals. This is not a question about "animal rights" and it would be rationalistic to assume that it is. So consider this scenario: people can acquire and use animals under certain conditions in the law. E.g., the law can state that you can acquire and use an animal on the condition that you not inflict needless suffering on it. Should you decide to inflict needless suffering, where other humans have a rational interest in not wanting needless suffering to go on, those other humans have the right to step in and stop it. They are, of course, doing it on behalf of the animal, but they are not doing it on behalf of any purported rights-claim by the animal. They are doing it on behalf of their own rights-claims grounded in their own rational interests.

And that's how laws should be drawn up and rights codified -- to reflect the rational interests of humans.

Kant wanted to answer Hume in more ways than one -- on both the epistemology and on the ethics. Hume sees no ultimate necessity to any ought-claims; all we have are contingent if-then (if you want X, do Y). To be consistent, of course, Hume has to say that reason discovering the relation between means and ends is not literally discovering, beyond a matter of habit and convenience, any real relation between cause and effect.

With Hume, neither necessity nor, analogously, "ought," can be found in experience. Not an "ought" with any kind of inherent bindingness, anyway. Kant agreed on these and said that for there to be universal, necessary inherent bindingness about is-claims much less ought-claims, something from the subject that constitutes (gives law to) the world of experience has to be provided. The world of experience only gives us inclination (passion). Kant's derivation of the Categorical Imperative is best understood in terms of how he answers Hume. Kant's trying to locate a source of rational and necessary bindingness about ought-claims that aren't found in Hume; he just goes and takes the bad opposite to this in his style of arguing for it, that's all. In his derivation, Kant needs to find necessity, doesn't locate that in inclination, and so sees some need to remove inclination from consideration and focus on what we can rationally will about all our actions generally regardless of our particular, empirical, contingent inclinations.

Rand's neo-Aristotelian derivation takes, well, not the "middle ground," but a new ground that rejects these alternatives. Her derivation incorporating the "choice to live" points to an assertoric imperative ("since you choose X, you ought to do Y") as foundational to moral obligation, not categorical (Kant) or hypothetical (Hume) ones. And the assertoric imperative relies upon the practical form of a denial-through-affirmation, analogous to the epistemic form of it. Aristotle's opponents ask why they should accept the laws of logic, but in asking that very question they already affirm that they do accept them and thereby commit themselves to norms and standards of inquiry. Same with anyone who asks why they ought to choose to live. They have made that ongoing choice already and the question then is what to do now. And that also binds them to accepting norms and standards regarding what to do -- the central one being the necessity to be rational, the basis for rationality as the primary virtue. But the choice to live is central to the derivation; for Kant, being living things is just a contingent empirical fact that doesn't bear on the grounding of obligation.

Basically, Hume and Kant got into the mess they did by ignoring Aristotle.

Rand's derivation of ought-statements from is-ones is actually just a fleshing out of the oughtness already contained in facts; in sometimes-used parlance, facts are value-laden. There's no assumption that we're taking non-normative factual statements and deriving normative ones from them; that would be an invalid inference and it's the ONLY thing that Hume got right in his inane but oh-so-clever-sounding observation.

For Hume, is there any such thing as a value-laden fact? Does he experience or observe an "ought"? Fred says that he says he does, when we start looking into the facts about human passions and sentiments, reason used as a tool only to discover the relation between means and ends. Both would be in an out-of-context "agreement" that "ought" comes into the picture when we use reason to consider directives about to do. (Putting aside for the moment the issue of what Rand and Hume each mean by "reason.") So insofar as Hume is doing any kind of derivation, it starts irreducibly with human passion:

(1) I want X.
(2) To do X, reason tells me I need to do Y.
(3) Therefore, I ought to do Y.

That, to use Rand's phraseology, is to base ethics ultimately on whim. You'll also note that there is not even a derivation within Hume to any conclusion that you ought as such to use reason as your guide -- whereas, for Rand, that is the core of her derivation.

It begins to get tiresome to see Fred trying to show that Rand and all these other philosophers were in agreement after all. The latest example:

Sure he did. A Moral sense or to quote James "sentiment." But you are right to note that both Hume and Rand think that there is a relation between "ought" and "is".

How so? What relationship of any significance is there in Hume? Hume, being a full-blown empiricist in his conclusions (full-blown rationalist in his method, but that's nothing new in the history of philosophy), won't locate any "ought" in experience, so what kind of rational bindingness is he going to find in any "ought" statement? Particularly when you take into consideration the context of his other statements about reason being only a slave to the passions, reduced to the role of finding means to arbitrarily selected ends? What kind of meaningful "ought" is there in saying that if you desire X, therefore you ought to do Y? Are ends open to meaningful "ought" questioning? Rand's argument in "Causality vs. Duty" is establishing one component necessary to moral obligation, that is lacking in Kantian deontology. The (superficial) similarity between Rand and Hume ends right there. (Kant has it right that human ends are open to rational criticism; his argument showing how this is, though, is full-blown formalistic and not biocentric-Aristotelian.)

You ask, "what is the source of "ought"?" See my posts to James and Casey. In a word, oughts are derived from a moral sense that all humans share. Now that may be wrong, but it is not the position that you can never derive an "ought" from an "is." You just can't use Rationalists' ises. (Is that a word?).

Best call them "izzes."

I was wanting Richard to clarify his own position on where "oughts" come from, since he's referred many times to "objective moral facts" without telling us what these are or how he knows. Like all pomowankers (I say this in a loving, caring, Hudgins-tick-of-approval way) he's not so good at committing to a position, just pin-pricking away at others'. Though I think we've got him to accept man's life qua man as the standard of value every second Tuesday.

Mencken said 99% of everything popularly believed is nonsense. I like that statement, so it must be true. And it's especially true within the philosophy profession. You get Hume saying we can't be sure the sun will rise tomorrow and then Kant saying, which sun—phenomenal or noumenal? These erudite nincompoops and their idiotic dichotomies are still respectable, while Rand the Dichotomy-Buster is airily dismissed. Philosophy folk would rather be fashionable fools than fastidious, fearless freethinkers. Go figure.

It is precisely my empirical belief that folks do not ALL share the same moral "sentiments" which causes my dissatisfaction with Hume. (I've been a public prosecutor.) Our moral "sense" is not a given, but something developed over time, something we can shape with our thinking.

Having observed enough three year olds, I am not confident in the existence of a universal moral sense at all.

It's also curious that the famous moral "skeptic" Hume and many Christians in a sense agree about the existence of an innate "conscience."

I've noticed that Hume used "Derive," too, and that is significant if we are reducing what he said to axiomatic status for the purposes of argument as has, I believe, been done without sufficient warrant.

I'm going to keep thinking about the points you raised, which seem pretty solid, but I want to think them through and tell you what I think later.

"And I still don't see Hume's as a satisfactory answer to the "deuces wild" issue.
And Hume seems to be denying that an ethical conflict could exist between our reason and our emotions -- that it boils down to emotion versus emotion"

I think Hume would have thought his theory forestalled the "deuces wild" notion of morality. This because of three reasons. (1) he thought that the sentiments that found morality are the same for ALL humans; (2) these sentiments produce in us that SAME moral evalutions; (3) they apply to ALL humans and finally (4) they produce in us assessments of ALL human beings.
See ENQUIRY CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS 9.1

Since Hume is an empiricists, these are empirical claims and may prove to be false. But IF true, they woud make impossible the "deuces wild" problem.

Interestingly, the same problem crops up in Objectivistism, but in metaphysics instead of psychology. Since the Objectivist Ethics is in part realit based, a lot depends on how on conceives reality. Is it a God created reality; a materialist reality, a reality of entites conceived as potencies striving to actualize their being-at-work (energia). You pays your money, you takes you choice. Ahhhhh.

You ask, "what is the source of "ought"?" See my posts to James and Casey. In a word, oughts are derived from a moral sense that all humans share. Now that may be wrong, but it is not the position that you can never derive an "ought" from an "is." You just can't use Rationalists' ises. (Is that a word?).

"It does seem that he is concerned with the relationship between fact and value -- and wonders if such can ever be established. The Objectivist can agree that it must be established, but I don't see Hume asserting that it can be."

Your right about him not "asserting" the relation between "is" and "ought" in the quotation you provided. But he does exactly that in Section II, which follows the Section in which the famous quotation appears. Now he may be wrong in his belief that morality is derived from a moral sense, but he does think oughts are in fact so derived. But you do quote it in your next cite from Hume, to wit: "The hypothesis which we embrace is plain. It maintains that morality is determined by sentiment."

"Wouldn't "factual premises" and "factual premises about human experience" be a distinction without a difference?"

Presumably not for Hume. Here is what he writes shortly after the famous passage on "is" and "ought:"

"The distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, not is perceiv'd by reason."

This is followed by Section II entitled "Moral distinctions deriv'd from a moral sense." I take him to be saying that moral distinctions can not be derived merely by looking at objects in nature, nor, as the Rationalists would have us believe, by deduction from premises supplied to us innately by God.

I of course agree with your last sentence, provided we keep in mind his distinction between "deduce" and "derive."

We might as well quote Rand here on the subject: "In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do."

Hence, she posited that life is the standard of value and values only apply to life. As I said earlier, it's rather strange to use Hume to refute something he never encountered and wasn't writing in opposition to in any event. He may have agreed, and in an unclear way may have, with Rand's statement, according to Fred's source.

While you can't deduce an 'is' (you must observe it), you can deduce an ought from an is that has already been derived by induction. But 'ought' must be identified as a property of life itself, and not some mystical floating abstraction separate from the facts of life. That kind of 'ought' could never be derived from an 'is' because it doesn't start with 'is.' Rand starts with 'is' (induction) and proceeds from there to 'ought' (deduction), which Hume could not see a way to do because he jettisoned induction, which is the first necessary step to connecting 'is' to 'ought.'

Moreover, I did not disclaim any effectiveness to deduction, did I? I said, to be precise, that the facts needed cannot simply be deduced. I'm not sure that there is that much space between Fred and me, in this context, as you seem to think.

you cannot deduce an "ought" from an "is". That is to say, you cannot end up with an evaluative conclusion if you begin from purely factual premises, BUT YOU CAN END UP WITH AN EVALUATIVE 'CONCLUSION' IF YOU BEGIN FROM FACTUAL PREMISES ABOUT HUMAN NATURE."

Ah! So you can deduce an "ought" from an "is" - you just have to begin with the right kind of "is"s, viz., factual premises about human nature.

That's as may be, Fred. Suffice it for me to note that this now pits you against James. Mr. Valliant insists that you cannot logically deduce an "ought" from an "is". So insistent is he that he repeats himself FOUR times. He has, indeed, been saying that you can't DEDUCE an ought from an is for quite some time now.

I'm more than happy to leave the two of you to do battle. In fact, I will.

In the immortal words of Steven Wright,

I got a Hume-edifier and a de-Hume-edifier... I put them in the same room and let them fight it out.

And I still don't see Hume's as a satisfactory answer to the "deuces wild" issue.

And Hume seems to be denying that an ethical conflict could exist between our reason and our emotions -- that it boils down to emotion versus emotion when someone "denies himself" of what he wants on ethical grounds, for example.

Using Hume to refute Rand is problematic since both of them rejected the same opponents and for largely the same reasons. Both agreed what would be necessary for an Ought to derive from an Is; Hume could not find it, but Rand provided precisely what he agreed it must be. It is quite possible Hume himself would agree with Rand, as both he and Rand rejected the arguments of Hume's contemporaries on this matter. Makes me wonder if Hume would be spinning in his grave to see his work against rationalists used against Rand's solution -- but we can't know. He had never encountered nor debated Rand's position.

"In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark'd, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it shou'd be observ'd and explain'd; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it."

It lacks a certain clarity, I must say. It does seem that he is concerned with the relationship between fact and value -- and wonders if such can ever be established. The Objectivist can agree that it must be established, but I don't see Hume asserting that it can be. We do get this much: a "deduction" of this is "inconceivable," but an account is necessary. He does seem also to be suggesting that "observations concerning human affairs" might not cut it, either.

"The hypothesis which we embrace is plain. It maintains that morality is determined by sentiment. It defines virtue to be whatever mental action or quality gives to a spectator the pleasing sentiment of approbation; and vice the contrary. We then proceed to examine a plain matter of fact, to wit, what actions have this influence. We consider all the circumstances in which these actions agree, and thence endeavour to extract some general observations with regard to these sentiments. If you call this metaphysics, and find anything abstruse here, you need only conclude that your turn of mind is not suited to the moral sciences."

Hume seems to regard "sentiment," or emotion, as a basic "fact" about human nature, and the one that determines the question of value and "virtue."

That humans have emotions is the "fact" that generates the world of ethics, for Hume.

For Rand, it is the nature of life which generates the phenomenon of "values" -- and this, in turn, is the deeper causal explanation of the phenomenon of emotions.

"Hume's position is this: you cannot deduce an "ought" from an "is". That is to say, you cannot end up with an evaluative conclusion if you begin from purely factual premises."

I would make just a slight correction. I would write you quote this way: you cannot deduce an "ought" from an "is". That is to say, you cannot end up with an evaluative conclusion if you begin from purely factual premises, BUT YOU CAN END UP WITH AN EVALUATIVE 'CONCLUSION' IF YOU BEGIN FROM FACTUAL PREMISES ABOUT HUMAN NATURE."

Norton puts it this way. After dealing with the famous "is" "ought" passage which he sees as directed against the rationalists he writes, "Obligation cannot be derived from factual premises but they are derived from the facts of human experience. (171)

And left himself in a bind. One of the main ways to gain knowledge of human consciousness is through induction, since direct observation of human consciousness is possible only to conscious humans, and is necessarily limited to a sample of one. (That is induction.)

Therefore, a fact about the "is" of human consciousness, or any real world fact, starts with induction, a sample of observation or experience from which we tentatively extrapolate broader conclusions.

As an example: "I am able to think to solve problems. Hunger is a problem, but poison kills me. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed. I should therefore observe what is edible and eat that to solve my problem. I should think to solve my problems." This is the opposite of Descartes --in effect, I am therefore I should think, I am a rational being, therefore I should be rational, Is/Ought. In effect, I am able to think to solve problems -- nature to be commanded must be obeyed (both inductions) -- I should think to solve problems (an ought based on is).

Rand rejected Hume's rejection of is/ought AND his rejection of induction, which is what got him bollixed up in the first place. His concept of "innate" truths about human nature is mystical twaddle on stilts. Facts about human consciousness must be observed just like anything else.

Navigation

More SOLO Store

Syndicate

The opinions expressed here are the unmoderated views of the contributors who express them.They do not necessarily reflect the views of other contributors, or of SOLO, and do not necessarily align with Objectivism.